And I beg I may not be charged with excessive
arrogance when I venture to say that they contain a considerable portion
of original thinking.'London Mag. 1783, p. 124.

[152] Burns, in The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer, says:--

'But could I like Montgomeries fight,
Or gab like Boswell.'

Boswell and Burns were born within a few miles of each other, Boswell
being the elder by eighteen years.

[153]
'For pointed satire I would Buckhurst choose,
The best good man, with the worst-natured muse.'

Rochester's Imitations of Horace, Sat. i. 10.

[154] Johnson's Works, ix. i. See ante, ii. 278, where he wrote to
Boswell:--'I have endeavoured to do you some justice in the first
paragraph [of the Journey].' The day before he started for Scotland he
wrote to Dr. Taylor:--'Mr. Boswell, an active lively fellow, is to
conduct me round the country.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 422. 'His
inquisitiveness,' he said, 'is seconded by great activity.' Works, ix.
8. On Oct. 7 he wrote from Skye:--'Boswell will praise my resolution and
perseverance; and I shall in return celebrate his good humour and
perpetual cheerfulness.... It is very convenient to travel with him, for
there is no house where he is not received with kindness and respect.'
Piozzi Letters, i. 198. He told Mrs. Knowles that 'Boswell was the
best travelling companion in the world.' Ante, iii. 294. Mr. Croker
says (Croker's Boswell, p. 280):--'I asked Lord Stowell in what
estimation he found Boswell amongst his countrymen. "Generally liked as
a good-natured jolly fellow," replied his lordship. "But was he
respected?" "Well, I think he had about the proportion of respect that
you might guess would be shown to a jolly fellow." His lordship thought
there was more regard than respect.' Hebrides, p. 40.

[155] See ante, ii. 103, 411.

[156] There were two quarto volumes of this Diary; perhaps one of them
Johnson took with him. Boswell had 'accidently seen them and had read a
great deal in them,' as he owned to Johnson (ante, under Dec. 9,
1784), and moreover had, it should seem, copied from them (ante, i.
251). The 'few fragments' he had received from Francis Barber
(ante, i. 27).

[157] In the original 'how much we lost at separation' Johnson's
Works, ix. I. Mr. William Nairne was afterwards a Judge of the Court
of Sessions by the title of Lord Dunsinnan. Sir Walter Scott wrote of
him:--'He was a man of scrupulous integrity. When sheriff depute of
Perthshire, he found upon reflection, that he had decided a poor man's
case erroneously; and as the only remedy, supplied the litigant
privately with money to carry the suit to the supreme court, where his
judgment was reversed.' Croker's Boswell, p. 280.

[160] My friend, General Campbell, Governour of Madras, tells me, that
they made speldings in the East-Indies, particularly at Bombay, where
they call them Bambaloes. BOSWELL. Johnson had told Boswell that he
was 'the most unscottified of his countrymen.'Ante, ii. 242.

[161] 'A small island, which neither of my companions had ever visited,
though, lying within their view, it had all their lives solicited their
notice.' Johnson's Works, ix. 1.

[162] 'The remains of the fort have been removed to assist in
constructing a very useful lighthouse upon the island. WALTER SCOTT.

[163]

'Unhappy queen!
Unwilling I forsook your friendly state.'

Dryden. [Aeneid, vi. 460.] BOSWELL.

[164] Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 331) says of his journey to London in
1758:--'It is to be noted that we could get no four-wheeled chaise
till we came to Durham, those conveyances being then only in their
infancy. Turnpike roads were only in their commencement in the north.'
'It affords a southern stranger,' wrote Johnson (Works ix. 2), 'a new
kind of pleasure to travel so commodiously without the interruption of
toll-gates.'

[165] See ante, iii. 265, for Lord Shelburne's statement on this
subject.

[166] See ante, ii. 339, and iii. 205, note 4.

[167] See ante, iii. 46.

[168] The passage quoted by Dr. Johnson is in the Character of the
Assembly-man; Butler's Remains, p. 232, edit. 1754:--'He preaches,
indeed, both in season and out of season; for he rails at Popery, when
the land is almost lost in Presbytery; and would cry Fire! Fire! in
Noah's flood.'

There is reason to believe that this piece was not written by Butler,
but by Sir John Birkenhead; for Wood, in his Athenae Oxonienses, vol.
ii. p. 640, enumerates it among that gentleman's works, and gives the
following account of it:

'The Assembly-man (or the character of an assembly-man) written 1647,
Lond. 1662-3, in three sheets in qu. The copy of it was taken from the
author by those who said they could not rob, because all was theirs; so
excised what they liked not; and so mangled and reformed it, that it was
no character of an Assembly, but of themselves.